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Liberty Statue

High atop Gellért Hill, an imposing Soviet monument to liberation from the Nazis, cleansed of Soviet references in 1989

A Key Monument of the Budapest Citadel

"In memory of all those who sacrificed their lives for the independence, liberty and prosperity of Hungary". Thus reads the inscription, in Hungarian and Russian, on the base of this socialist-heroic-style monument erected in 1947 to memorialise the Soviet Red Army's liberation of the country from Nazi occupation. At 40 metres (131 feet) in height, it's visible from a good portion of the city below. After the fall of Communism in 1989, the inscription was actually changed from the original, "To the memory of the liberating Soviet heroes [erected by] the grateful Hungarian people [in] 1945" and two accompanying statues of Soviet soldiers were transferred to Memento Park in Pest (see below).